Gun control

Taken down

A modest attempt to curb the sale of firearms fails

EVERY so often there appears to be a turning point in the debate over guns in America. The latest came in December, when 20 children and six staff were shot to death at a school in Newtown, Connecticut. “We can’t tolerate this any more,” said Barack Obama shortly afterwards. “These tragedies must end. And to end them, we must change.” Americans seemed to agree. Polls showed increased support for stricter gun laws in the aftermath of the shooting. But as the months passed, that enthusiasm waned.

Sensing this, in March Democrats in the Senate introduced only a modest bill that contained few of the big restrictions first sought by gun-control advocates and by the administration. It aimed to toughen penalties for illegal gun sales and increase funding for school-safety programmes. Most important, it would have expanded the use of background checks, which are meant to keep unfit people, like criminals and the mentally ill, from acquiring guns. Under current law, such checks are required only for sales handled by a licensed dealer. The bill would have extended the requirement to all purchases.

Although immensely popular, this was poison to many Republican legislators, who do not like the idea of government interference in private sales. So a compromise was hashed out between two pro-gun senators—Joe Manchin, a Democrat from West Virginia, and Patrick Toomey, a Republican from Pennsylvania—that focused only on extending the checks to sales at gun shows and online.

In the end, even that proved too ambitious. Despite having once supported more background checks, the National Rifle Association threatened senators with electoral retribution if they backed “Obama’s gun ban”. Some appeared cowed. Early signs of support quickly faded, and on April 17th the Democrats failed to muster the 60 votes needed to pass the background-check compromise, derailing their push for stricter gun laws.

Short memories cannot be blamed for the defeat. Democrats incessantly invoked the victims of Newtown and other gun violence during the debate. But far from swaying the 41 Republicans and four Democrats who blocked the measure, the tactic dismayed some. When the family members of victims showed up in Washington, Rand Paul, a Republican from Kentucky, called them the president’s “props”.

Mr Paul and others noted that the background-check proposal would not have stopped Adam Lanza, the shooter in Newtown, who had used his mother’s legally-obtained guns to carry out his massacre. This is true, but proposals that would have taken some of the firepower out of Lanza’s hands won even less support. Bans on assault weapons and high-capacity magazines did not even win a majority of votes in the Democrat-controlled Senate. The measure that came closest to passing this week would have made it easier to carry a concealed weapon.

“All in all, this was a pretty shameful day for Washington,” said Mr Obama. He and his fellow Democrats vowed to continue to pursue tougher gun laws, but their way forward is now unclear. If a tragedy like Newtown cannot galvanise support for even modest reforms, nothing will.